1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates to a method for mechanically obtaining meat from the bodies of slaughtered poultry, which bodies are moved past a number of tools, as well as to an apparatus for performing this method with continuously moved conveyors having receptacles for holding the poultry bodies to be processed, as well as tools arranged along the conveyor path for detaching the meat from the skeleton.
2. Prior Art
EP-Al-168 865 discloses an apparatus, which although directed at removing the top part of the wishbone (clavicula), said processing step, however, preceding a filleting process, which results in a double fillet comprising the breast meat in the form of the outer fillets and the inner fillets. In this apparatus the poultry bodies in the form of front halves are saddled onto the saddles of a conveyor driven in rotary manner, so that a horn of the saddle projects into the neck opening and the breast part is directed upwards. The filleting of the poultry body conveyed with the neck opening leading takes place in the lower run of the apparatus and starts with the retaining of the breast meat and thus the stripping thereof from the wish-hone up to the breast-bone (sternum) and is continued by a scraping tool, which is adapted to the poultry body shape and which brings about the separation of the meat up to the breast-bone comb (crista sterni) by penetrating between the skeleton and the meat. Following scraping fingers bring about the detachment from the sides of the breast-bone in its transition region to the breast-bone plate (corpus sterni) and finally the complete separation of the double fillet by means of paring belts driven in rotary manner.
According to a further embodiment of this prior art document a first filleting tool is constituted by a pair of milling or cutting rollers, which raise from the skeleton the fillet meat located in the vicinity of the ribs. This tool is followed by a scraping tool of the type described hereinbefore and which brings about the separation of the meat up to the breast-hone comb. A tool comprising paring belts driven in rotary manner finally carries out the complete separation of the double fillet.
EP-Al-207 553 discloses a further apparatus for obtaining meat from poultry bodies in the form of double fillets. Here again the starting product is the front half of a poultry body, which is inverted or pushed onto the saddle horn of a saddle forming part of a revolving conveyor. During the saddling the wing joints and therefore the attachment points of the wish-bone are kept inwardly displaced and the poultry body is delivered in this way to the filleting tools arranged along the bottom strand of the conveyor and the fillet meat is essentially obtained by sliding off.
The products resulting from these known methods do not meet the requirements regarding their optical impression, which results both from the contour and from the manner in which the separation surface is produced
3. Objects of the Invention
The main object of the invention resides in improving such methods and devices for obtaining fillets from poultry bodies with regard to the above requirements and criteria.
In such improvement, it is a particular object to obtain an optically attractive product.
It is a further essential object to achieve this with maximum fillet meat yield.